


i'm a mess (but i'm the mess that you wanted)

by lazyfish



Series: swaying as the room burned down [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Hunter gets Hanahaki disease.





	i'm a mess (but i'm the mess that you wanted)

Three days after his wife files for divorce, Hunter coughs up a flower petal. It’s small - almost small enough that he missed it - but the petal’s bright blue almost shines against the dust covering every surface of his new apartment. 

Really, he should’ve been expecting this. He knows that the reason he and Bobbi had always argued wasn’t because he didn’t love her; it was because he loved her too much, and didn’t know what to do with it. Hunter’s never known what to do with feelings. 

He doesn’t know what to do with these ones, either. He picks up the petal from the floor and rubs it between his fingers until it disintegrates.

He had always thought he was going to die for Bobbi. He just didn’t know it was going to be like this.

\---

For a long time, no one notices he’s sick. Hunter likes it that way; he doesn’t want pity, and he certainly doesn’t need it. It’s not all that bad, either. With the divorce comes space, and every study on Hanahaki disease has shown that space is the easiest way to slow the disease’s progress.

It would be even slower if he could force himself to stop looking at the pictures of them together, or if he could keep himself from listening to the recordings he’d made of her humming him songs to chase the nightmares away, but he can’t. Hunter doesn’t have much left of his ex-wife, but he wants to remember the happy times, before she stopped loving him and grew flowers in his lungs.

The bluebell petals he coughs up are beautiful - that’s why Bob had insisted on having them in her wedding bouquet - but he can’t breathe.

\---

“Hunter.”

“Iz.”

“Please tell me what I think is happening isn’t really happening.”

“What do you think is happening?” Izzy fixes him with a look that could kill, and Hunter just shrugs helplessly.

“I’ve got time.” And he does. Hunter knows this much. It’s been a year since he’s last seen Bobbi, and he’s hardly coughing up any more petals than he did at first. It’s just one or two a day - that’s it. Hardly dangerous. If he keeps it up at this rate he’ll live to see forty, maybe even fifty.

“But not forever.” The corners of Izzy’s mouth turn down, and Hunter tries not to feel guilty. It’s not his fault Izzy’s mum had died from Hanahaki. It’s not his fault that he’s going to make her watch him die, too. Maybe it’s a blessing that he’ll be able to wring a decade or two out of his body before the flowers take him over, but maybe it’s a curse. He’ll wither away slowly, and Izzy will watch every moment of it. Of course she will. She loves him more than either of them care to admit, and when he finally chokes on his love, she will be there.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

(Things never quite happen the way they’re supposed to.)

\---

Hunter wonders how there are people who can pine and pine and pine and never get Hanahaki disease. He’s not a researcher, and never will be one, but if he was into that sort of thing that would be the question he asked.

Fitz tells him he’s spent the past decade in love with a girl, and he’s still breathing clearly and flower-free. It’s only been four years since Hunter fell for the goddess on the pier, and he’s been consumed in every possible way.

But Fitz doesn’t know Hunter’s sick. Everyone attributes his strange behavior to Izzy’s death, and while that’s not exactly wrong, frustration plays a big part of it, too. It’s not  _ fair _ . He knows that life isn’t fair but it’s been one sucker punch after another, and it’s hard to be punched in the gut when it’s hard for him to breathe in the first place.

He tries to tell Fitz, in the only way Hunter can talk about emotions - cautious, roundabout, too little for anyone to really understand. Bobbi had always understood him, because she was the same way. She could fill in the gaps. Fitz can’t, though, and Hunter has to be okay with that, the same he has to be okay with Bobbi being the love of his life.

\---

Hunter knows he’s screwed from the moment she walks through the door. He fakes indignation, hides his coughs in scoffing, and doesn’t let anyone know that the reason he is ready to run is because he is not ready to die. 

When she smiles at him he can feel the flowers blooming. It’s like his chest is twisting and stretching at the same time, and it hurts. But when she smiles, he can’t look away.

Bobbi doesn’t quite ask him to stay, but she doesn’t ask him to leave, either. That’s more than she had done before, when she had asked for a divorce and told him to walk away. She smiles at him again when she sees the keychain he’s been carrying around as his good-luck charm, and he can feel roots burying themselves in his lungs.

When they get back on the Quinjet to go back to the base, Hunter has to stop so he can cough. For the first time, he hacks up a whole flower instead of just a petal or two. Bobbi commands him to get on the plane so they can get moving, and Hunter hastily discards the flowers on the ground. The blue flowers are bright against the dirt, but no one else is left to see them.

He straps himself into the plane’s jumper seat and prays that he won’t cough any more. He doesn’t need to make Bobbi suspicious. She already thinks he’s pathetic enough without knowing that he’s so hopelessly in love with her that he’s still pining a year after the divorce.

Hunter doesn’t want to die. Seeing Bobbi has reminded him, though, of everything he loves about her: her quick tongue and fierce protectiveness and general bad-assery. He loves her eyes and her smile and the way she wrinkles her nose at him when she’s annoyed. Hunter doesn’t want to die, but he’s not sure he can walk away from those things again.

He does the only thing he can do: he stays.

\---

The gig is up when Simmons finally corners him and tells him that his physical examination is long-overdue. She sits him on an examination table and asks him question after invasive question about his history, frowning when she sees the number of scars on his body compared with the number of times he’s ever visited a doctor.

Hunter doesn’t like doctors, but he’s not enough of a dick to say that to Simmons’s face.

Eventually she moves onto the physical examination, and Hunter knows what’s going to happen when she listens to his lungs.

“There appears to be some sort of obstruction in your lower lungs. Have you been having any trouble breathing recently?” Simmons moves the cold metal of the stethoscope up slightly further and Hunter breathes obediently.

“A little,” he hedges. He knows Simmons won’t believe that he’s breathing normally, especially not if she actually bothers watching him doing his daily activities. Hunter can push through when it comes to mission work - over the years he’s become adept at hiding his weaknesses in the field - but when no one else is watching, he’ll wheeze while working out in the gym or even when walking at too fast a pace.

“Do you have any idea why that might be?” Simmons asks, stepping back to look at him with warm brown eyes that are equal parts stern and concerned.

As answer, Hunter coughs into his open hand, and shows her the flower that’s been deposited there.

“Oh, Lance…” She murmurs, moving to take the flower from him and putting it in the garbage. Hunter doesn’t know whether Jemma realizes who he’s pining over or if she’s just a generally empathetic person. “Is there a reason you haven’t reported this to the Director?”

Hunter laughs. He doubts anyone on the team would believe that he has Hanahaki - he’s done a good enough job pretending that he hates Bobbi that they’ll never think that he’s capable of love, let alone the kind of unrequited love that leads to Hanahaki disease. “Do you want to tell Coulson about your romantic woes?” He asks instead.

Jemma frowns at him. “I’m obligated to put a note on your file.”

“Fine.” Hunter doesn’t look at her. 

“I can see if I can find anything to slow it down,” Jemma says. “Until then…”

“I’ll try to stay away from her.” Jemma gives him a look like she knows that’s impossible, and Hunter just grimaces back at her.

“Be careful, Hunter.”

As if he’s capable of that.

\---

_ With you. _

The words echo in his head long after Bobbi has left him, and Hunter wants them to stop. With every repetition the vice on his chest gets tighter and tighter, because it’s a constant reminder of what they had had. At one point, she had loved him enough that he was the exception to all of her rules. And now she doesn’t, and he’s not, and he just wants to cry.

Hunter sits on his bed, knees to his chest, when there’s a knock on the door.

Simmons is there when he opens it, a plate of food in her hands. “You weren’t at dinner.” 

“I was not.” Seeing Bobbi had not been something he had wanted to do.

“You need to eat.”

“I had sex with Bobbi,” he blurts out. Jemma blinks at his non sequitur, but nods as she sits on the bed beside him. 

“You’re aware -”

“Yeah.” Hunter stabs a green bean onto his fork, and barely chews it before swallowing. He doesn’t want a lecture on how being close to Bobbi is killing him. He knows, and he’s been giving himself the same lecture on repeat. It’s not helping.

“Okay.” Jemma pats his arm awkwardly. “As long as you know.”

“I know.” He eats another green bean in silence. “God, I know.”

\---

“You’re getting old,” Bobbi tells him with a teasing smile. Hunter smiles at her, panting, before flopping to the side, grasping blindly for a water bottle. He takes a swig before passing it to Bobbi, who takes a long draw herself. 

“Maybe so.” Hunter resists the urge to snuggle up next to her, reminding himself that Bobbi still doesn’t love him. He would know if she did, because then he wouldn’t be panting like he ran a marathon after having sex. Granted, it was athletic (and very hot) sex, so it wasn’t like it wouldn’t normally get his heart rate up, but he can barely breathe.

Bobbi turns to press her face into his shoulder, and Hunter can’t tell whether it’s easier or harder to draw his next breath. “We need to stop having morning sex. I just want to go back to sleep.”

“As if you could ever resist me.” Bobbi’s laugh fills the room, and she presses a light kiss to his shoulder before sitting up.

“Just for that, I’m getting up.” She makes good on her promise, rolling out of bed and sliding into her clothes from the night before. Hunter much prefers them on the floor, even if the tank top Bobbi’s wearing makes her boobs look amazing.

“Don’t die out there!” Bobbi stops in her tracks, turning to look at him.

“Babe, it’s the base. I couldn’t die in here if I wanted to.”

“You’ve obviously never pissed May off.” Hunter grins. Bobbi rolls her eyes at him, but instead of turning back to leave the room, she strides across the room to plant a firm kiss on his lips.

“I promise to protect you from the scary lady.” Bobbi’s smile is like sunshine, warming Hunter even after she’s gone.

He coughs up a dozen bluebells in the shower, and Hunter remembers sunshine makes flowers grow faster.

\---

Simmons catches him when he’s alone in the kitchen, fixing himself lunch. She hands him a plastic bag full of tiny green pills, and it takes all of Hunter’s energy not to make a joke about a drug bust. He has a feeling Simmons won’t appreciate that.

“They’re just experimental - a mild herbicide,” she warns. “I expect you know that they won’t cure you. But they might give you more time.”

“More time to what?” Hunter asks. “Bob’s moved on. She’s not going to fall back in love with me if she hasn’t done already.”

Jemma bites her lip, looking like she wants to say something. “I know. But -”

“I don’t want to hear it, Simmons.” Hunter feels bad for being short with the scientist, but he’s barely emotionally stable as it is. He doesn’t need her giving him any more unwarranted hope. He knows his Bobbi, and he knows how stubborn she can be when she wants to be. If she’s made up her mind not to be in love with him, then she’s not going to be.

“Alright.” Jemma’s shoulders slump. “The Director will let you stay out in the field longer if you have those, but soon I’m going to have to advise that you aren’t allowed to leave the base.” Hunter’s eyes flash. “Hunter, you can barely make it down the hall without coughing. It’s a miracle no one else has found out.”

He doesn’t have a way to refute that, so Hunter just leaves the kitchen to put his pills in the bedside drawer.

\---

Even with Simmons’s pills, it’s getting harder for Hunter to keep his sickness a secret, just as she’d predicted. He’s in the garage with Mack, helping him with inventory (again). He’s halfway through counting a case of machine parts when a coughing spell overtakes him. Hunter coughs into his hand, hoping that it’ll keep him safe, but when he finishes, he can’t hide the petals in the palm of his hands quite fast enough.

Mack’s brown eyes are softer than Hunter’s ever seen them. “Bobbi?”

“Who else?” Hunter whispers. He coughs again, bluebells crawling up his throat. He spits them with the others in his hand, turning his gaze down. 

“You should tell her.”

“No.” Tears sting at his eyes and flowers tickle at his throat and Hunter is just so  _ tired _ . “I - she -”

Hunter can count on one hand the amount of times he’s cried in front of someone other than Bobbi, but he just can’t stop the sob that rips his chest open. Every day loving her hurts more, but Hunter can’t imagine a life where he doesn’t love Bobbi. He can’t imagine asking Jemma to remove the flowers from his lungs, because he will lose pieces of Bobbi with them. 

He’ll lose the way her eyes shine in the half-light of their bedroom and her sleepy morning smiles, the lilting of her voice when she teases him and the frantic slide of her hands when they make love.

He has already lost so much. He can’t lose any more.

\---

Bobbi sighs as she tucks herself into his side, arms wrapping around his stomach. Hunter turns to kiss the crown of her head absently, hiding a cough in his shoulder when the flowers begin tickling at his throat.

“You okay?” Bobbi asks, frowning. “I heard you coughing last night, too.”

“Just a bit of a cold.” Hunter kisses her head again. “No need to worry about me, love.”

“If I don’t, no one else will,” Bobbi gripes. “Don’t make me drag you to med bay, Hunter.”

“Yes ma’am.” Hunter knows when not to get into an argument with Bobbi, and this is one of those times.

“What do you think of Jemma?” Bobbi asks, out of the blue.

“I like her, I suppose.” Hunter furrows his brow. “...Do you want to ask her for a threesome?”

“No.” Bobbi wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like sharing.” Hunter chuckles at that. The question still remains, though, of what Bobbi’s getting at if not sex.

“I just noticed you two talk a lot, is all.”

“Well Jemma actually knows something about football, unlike some Americans I know.” Bobbi hits his chest indignantly at his teasing, and Hunter swears he feels a few flower petals dislodge themselves inside his lungs.

“It’s called soccer.”

“It is if you’re a heathen!”

“Is that what I am?” Bobbi straightens. “Is that really what you want to call the woman you’re sleeping with? A heathen?”

“If she acts like one, then sure.” 

Hunter’s entirely prepared for the pillow that Bobbi swings at his face, and he blocks it easily. The ensuing pillow fight leaves him breathless, and ends when he pins Bobbi under him with his full body weight. His lips are dangerously close to hers and her eyes are so, so blue.

Hunter wants to say that he loves her, but she knows she won’t say it back. Instead, he kisses her senseless, and tries to be thankful that he has some, if not all, of her.

\---

“You should tell her.” 

“I’m not having this conversation again, Jemma.” Hunter scrubs his hand over his face. “I’m not telling her.”

“Why not, though? The worst that happens -”

“Is that she thinks I’m guilt tripping her into falling in love with me?” Hunter finishes. “In case you didn’t know, Jemma, when you love someone you don’t give them ultimatums like  _ love me or I die _ .”

Jemma presses her lips together in a thin line. “You are so stubborn, Lance.”

“One of my most charming qualities, I know.” He thinks nothing of coughing up the wad of bluebells that’s caught in his throat, tossing them into the bin. It’s a good thing Bobbi hates taking out the trash, or she would probably wonder why there’s so many flowers in it.

“If she was the one who was sick, wouldn’t you want to know?” 

“That’s - that would never happen.” Hunter’s suddenly dizzy, and he leans back against the countertop. Even the thought of Bobbi not knowing he loves her is a physical pain that he can’t shake. He would know if she was pining after him. He would notice if she was coughing up flowers, even if she did her best to hide it. He would  _ know _ … wouldn’t he?

“I’m sure,” Jemma says drily. “I still think you should tell her.”

Hunter rolls his eyes. Sure,  _ he’s  _ the stubborn one in this friendship.

\---

“Hunter? What are these?” Bobbi holds up the bag of pills, and Hunter freezes. Shit. He hadn’t put them back the last time he had taken a dose, and he hadn’t thought about what he would have to tell Bobbi if she found them.

“They’re, um, pills.”

“I can see that.” Bobbi says. “What are they for?”

“Simmons gave them to me. For my cough.” Hunter takes a moment to rub at the center of his chest with his fist, hoping it sells the lie.

“Really?” Bobbi asks. “Because Jemma told me these were for Hanahaki disease.”

Hunter opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. He doesn’t know why Jemma was showing Bobbi the pills, or how Bobbi recognizes them so easily, but he doesn’t have a lie ready. In hindsight, that would’ve been a good idea.

“Who?” Hunter can’t look at his ex-wife. She sounds so  _ sad _ , and he just can’t understand why - unless she knows that she’s the one he’s dying for.

“Doesn’t matter.” If she doesn’t know then she can’t feel guilty. Hunter keeps repeating that in his head as he stares at his feet.

“Is it Jemma?” 

Hunter doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look up when Bobbi throws the pills at him, or when she storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. He doesn’t follow her, because he can’t.

He spends the rest of the night in front of the toilet, coughing up so many flowers that he retches. 

He doesn’t have much time left.

\---

The downward spiral happens quickly, almost impossibly so. Bobbi avoids him, but instead of making the sickness better like it’s supposed to, her absence seems to make it worse. He asks Jemma to tell Coulson he’s not fit for field work, and spends most of his time in bed, trying to find the position where he can breathe easiest.

Most nights Hunter can’t even muster the energy to go eat dinner with the team. He knows Jemma’s made excuse after excuse for him, but she’s a poor liar and everyone probably knows that something’s wrong with him. So, he drags himself out of bed and down the hallway at a snail’s pace. Even walking is hard anymore.

Hunter plonks himself at the table, trying to hard how hard he’s breathing from Fitz and Daisy. They’re too absorbed in their conversation about a monkey battle royale to pay him much mind, but Jemma looks worried. She always looks worried when she sees him, though.

“Are you feeling any better?” 

Hunter shrugs, not trusting himself to speak without coughing.

The rest of the team trickles in, taking their spots at the table and apparently ignoring that Hunter looks like death warmed over. He’s grateful for that.

Then Bobbi comes in. She looks at him, and Hunter swears it’s only a glare from May that keeps her from walking right out again. She sits as far away from him as she can possibly get, which is fair. This is how they do things when they fight: there’s always too much tension and not enough communication, and every time it happens they lose a little bit of themselves.

Hunter doesn’t stop to think about why she’s still angry, because the moment he looks at her for longer than a moment, he can feel the flowers climbing up his trachea and into his mouth. He stands abruptly, limping his way to the kitchen sink so he can spit the first mouthful away. Hunter doesn’t have time to wash them down before painstakingly dragging himself to the bathroom, barely able to breathe around the rush of flowers making their way up.

He spits and hacks and tries to get rid of all of the damn bluebells, but more just keep coming, and coming, and coming.

Hunter had thought it was bad before, but now he really can’t breathe. He tries, harder than he’s tried to breathe ever before, but there’s just too many petals in the way. 

Black eats at the edges of his vision, and Hunter submits to unconsciousness gratefully.

\---

Bobbi and Jemma don’t realize that he can see them fighting from his hospital bed.

Hunter doesn’t know what they’re fighting about, but he can’t really muster up the energy to care. Even with the oxygen mask fitted over his mouth and nose he still doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough air.

He can’t tell who’s winning the argument, either - at least not until Jemma shouts something that makes Bobbi take a physical step backwards. Hunter is an expert in arguing with Bobbi, and he knows how rarely that happens. He also knows it means that Bobbi’s lost the argument, or at least resigned herself not to winning it. That’s the only way she’ll ever back down.

Bobbi says something to Jemma, and Hunter wishes he was better at reading lips. Jemma replies, shaking her head. Then she leaves, and only Bobbi is on the other side of the glass door of his hospital room. Hunter closes his eyes. He’s not strong enough to see the moment she walks away again.

His eyes spring open again when footsteps sound against the tile flooring. Bobbi stands at his bedside, towering over him while also looking impossibly small. She looks uncertain, which is new for her.

“Jemma says you’re in love with me.”

Hunter lowers his chin to his chest in a nod.

“Then why are you still sick?” Bobbi asks, voice creeping higher in pitch. “You shouldn’t still be sick, because you’re only supposed to sick when your love isn’t returned, but I  _ do _ .” Her voice grows tighter and her face redder as she fights away the tears, but if she’s already worked herself up to this point, there’s no going back. “I know I’m not good at showing it the way people say I’m supposed to, but I thought you got it. I thought you knew.”

Watching her cry is killing him more than the flowers are.

“Lance, I - I want the rest of my life with you. I don’t know how else to say it, but please -” she grabs his hand “- you have to stay with me.”

His heartbeat monitor counts out the seconds before Bobbi whispers in a tiny voice, “I love you.”

Those, Hunter thinks, are the magic words. All at once he can breathe again, and it’s overwhelming for his lungs to expand all the way. Bobbi must’ve heard the change in him, because in moments she’s ripping the oxygen mask off of him. She leans down to press her lips against hers. Her mouth is soft and tastes like springtime and hope. Hunter is already a little drunk on it, and on knowing that she loves him, too.

“I love you.” Bobbi climbs onto the bed beside him, lips still hovering over his. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” She kisses him between each repetition of the words, until Hunter is drunk on how they sound.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, voice scratching in his still-raw throat. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

She kisses him one more time for good measure, and Hunter knows that this love is different from all the others they’ve shared. It is precious and true, and when it blossoms in his chest, it doesn’t hurt at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](huntxngbxrd.tumblr.com)!


End file.
